Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Unless you live under a rock, you may have noticed one of the few stories capable of displacing the war in Lebanon as the lead story...Fidel Castro has ceded power to his brother Raul Castro (nepotism apparently being a paramount Marxist principle). Fidel stepped down because of surgery for internal bleeding and officially the move is "provisional." However, the rumors are flying around that Fidel Castro is either already dead or very near death. And that this story about the surgery is just Soviet style obfuscation to allow time for the power transfer. Reports are that dancing has already begun in the streets of Miami.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

And how many of these Cubans dancing in Miami are going to rush back to Cuba if Fidel is replaced?

That is what really bugs me the most. They came here, had their children here, and now their children (American born, never having been touched directly by Fidel's regime) are celebrating his potential demise.

For 50 years, the so called "Cuban exiles" have had a lock on U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba and really in Latin America as a whole. They can hardly be called exiles at this point. And I am just crogity enough to wish them well on their boats back to Havana. Good riddens.

After watching a special on North Korea last night, Fidel was a pussy cat. The whole thing just strikes me as a grudge of habit more than a practical policy concern. Now if there is instability following a hand off, that will be a policy concern!

Fidel did great things and terrible things. He fixed a system with massive inequality - that was good. Being afraid to transition to a free market economy and democracy after 1989- unforgivable.

Oh, and he's not dead yet. The assumption that his death will bring about massive change is probably overblown. It will bring about some change, and the possibility of a thaw with the USA. I can't wait to go visit Cuba when we can. I bet it will be like a trip to the past.

A friend of mine was a journalist in Florida for years and told me some scary stories about political violence in South Florida. People say even ambivalent things about Cuba's current government and system do so at the risk of their lives.

I would bet that the number of Cubans returning to Cuba will number in the thousands. Of course the "exiles" number in the hundreds of thousands so...

But like LTG says, even if Fidel is dead or dying, we'll probably have to wait for Raul to croak too before we see any real change.

The Cubanos anger will turn against the Republicans when, after Castro falls, they realize that Republicans never wanted to help Cuba, just exploit it for themselves. If they expect the USA to help rebuild the place or help them get their plantations back, they are sorely mistaken.